Unlike people on eBay, Jesus is not trying to sell us anything

The arrival of the internet has seen a remarkable number of success stories, where people have made vast amounts of money with very little effort.

Take the internet auction site eBay, which was established in 1995 and has become one of the real success stories in modern business practices.

The eBay site offers an opportunity for people to buy and sell pretty well anything.

There are, however, many examples of some rather dubious items having been offered for sale.

For example, a ten-year-old partially eaten sandwich, a ghost in a jar, someone tried to sell invisibility, someone tried to sell New Zealand and another Iceland, a single cornflake was sold for $1.85 and water from a cup that Elvis Presley drank from was sold for $455.

Then there was an air guitar for sale.

The seller describes it like this: ‘You are bidding on an original 1980s Air Guitar. I’ve had this since I was a little boy and feel it is time for me to part with it. Sometimes it has six strings; sometimes it has seven strings with a floating bridge.

‘I can play anything I like even though I don’t play guitar.

‘What’s great about it is you cannot damage it and you cannot break a string; even if you play a wrong note it will still be in key and you don’t have to worry about the neighbours.

‘It isn’t heavy - the only down side. WARNING: Do not play outside on a windy day.’

The current bid stands at 99p and the delivery cost is £25. For the uninitiated, an air guitar is a non-existent-guitar that children pretend to play.

Perhaps the most interesting item for sale though is the person who is selling the knowledge of the meaning of life.

That person writes: ‘I have discovered the reason for our existence and will be happy to share this information with the highest bidder.’

The last bid stood at $3.26. My guess is that if the person really had discovered the meaning of life, people would be prepared to pay an awful lot more than $3.26, because what they are looking for is truth.

But there is one person who really does know the secret of the meaning of life and that person is Jesus.

In Jesus we have the opportunity to draw upon his knowledge and his truth.

He isn’t, like the people on eBay, trying to sell what, at the best, is an opinion.

In fact, Jesus isn’t trying to sell us anything.

What Jesus has to offer is given freely to everyone who might want to receive it - the meaning of life.